Strategy - Return From The Stars

Strategy - Return From The Stars
It's probably safe to assume that Portland producer Paul Dickow will be the only artist to release music on both Chicago's Kranky label and Bristolian dance bastion Idle Hands. For the former, he has crafted two albums of fuzzy ambient pop, broad in approach and informed, in places, by the dubscapes of Basic Channel. Elsewhere he has deftly synthesised dance and pop forms of many stripes. Recent 12-inch releases for 100% Silk, Endless Flight and others have clustered around a dubby house aesthetic, while last year's eponymous LP was whimsical post-punk-disco of a very fine pedigree.

"Return From The Stars" is by no means Dickow's most adventurous work, but it's among his most finely wrought. It's also a brilliant fit for the Idle Hands aesthetic. Essentially this is dub techno, generously equipped in the low-end and housed in rich, darkened space. Dickow avoids the Rhythm & Sound cliché trap through subtle edits, and the distant accordion licks in the latter half are a nice classicist touch. Peverelist, meanwhile, puts a UK spin on things. The steel-plated 2-step framework of his remix sounds imported from a discarded El-B production, even if the chord work remains decidedly astral. This is space music for smokers. It may seem a curveball given Pev's recent Livity Sound work, but it's a gem in his (already star-studded) discography nonetheless.